Read it last year. It's great. The chapters about piracy, ship breaking, and the sinking of the Estonia are especially good.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

My Grandfather made it to 90 but decided one day that the leak in the roof would be best dealt with on a 100' day in August and had a heart attack up on his roof.

Bizarre.

According to family lore, one of my ancestors (a great-great uncle or something) lived to be 90, and was killed when he was watching his grandsons cut down a tree, and part of it fell on him.

On my mother's side, everyone lives to be 80 or 90. On my father's side, everyone has bad tickers and dies when they're 60 or 70.

I don't know which genes I got. But I do know that at age 46, I'm a hundred times more active than my father was when *he* was 46. I still kayak, hike and camp a lot, and ride a bicycle six miles for work every day. At age 46, my father huffed and puffed going up a flight of stairs (he had his first heart attack at age 47 or 48, IIRC). But then, he is (still) a two-pack-a-day smoker, and I rarely smoked (cigarettes, anyway).

Humber likes to email people and then use their replies as "gotchas." He goes on for some while about Lenny without ever mentioning him by name.

IIRC, he emailed me with some horseshit about Darwin being responsible for Hitler, and I pointed out that neither "Darwin" nor "evolution" is mentioned anywhere in "Mein Kampf", and that he is a flat-out liar for claiming so.

I'm dipping into "The Ordinall of Alchemy" by thomas Norton. I just can't seem to settle on any book these days, my attention abilities are broken.

Finally finished "The face of battle" by John Keegan, which looks at Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme, and consider the phsychological and social factors associated with fighting in each of these battles, the dangers people faced, how they coped with them, what kept them fighting rather than running away. Very moving in places, also makes me glad I have grown up without particular fear of being involved in war.

I realized that he had sent me several emails years ago. I told him that I didn't respond to individual emails about E/c, (I don't), and that he should post these to the TO newsgroup where I would reply.

After I gave up attempting to "debate" the nutters in private email, I answered everyone with a form letter explaining that I had no interest all in debating theology with them, since their religious opinions aren't any more authoritative or divine than anyone else's. Alas, about two-thirds of the nutters responded to that anyway, wanting to argue over this or that -- which prompted the response from me: "Which part of 'I have no interest in debating theology with you' were you too stupid to understand?"

Now, I just answer all the nutters right away with a one-sentence reply: "I don't give a flying fuck about your religious opinions. (shrug) "

Question: Is "Stranger in a Strange Land" literature (in the stuffy, English sense of the word)?

No. On the grounds that it tells us little about the human condition that has not been said before, is not, as far as I can recall, particularly well written, and also ultimately doesn't go far enough in the implications of what capabilities people have.

As an SF book of the time, it's good. That is if you agree that one of the purposes of SF is to explore possibilities and alternatives, and hold a mirror up to the present. But when I re-read it a few years ago, I found it a bit boring, because the shock value it had when it came out has been diluted as society has changed. Mind you, I still think Heinlein had an Oedipal complex.

You should re-read it. I read it when I was at school, about 17. It seemed pretty good at the time. Then I re-read it when I was 26 or so, and found it ok, but rather transparent and wish fulfilling, in the same way Starship troopers is. Reding it again will give you an idea of how you and your tastes have changed over the years.

Just to clarify, in the previous comments, I meant capabilities of people in the book, not people in real life.

I'm about a third of the way through Victor Stenger's "God: The Failed Hypothesis". I'll reserve judgment until I've finished it, except to say that it's a fantastic bus book. For those who haven't seen it, the cover has "GOD" in huge letters, with smaller letters below reading "The Failed Hypothesis", then in tiny ones "How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist". I've had several people sidle up to me with grins on their faces, get closer, then turn pale and back away slowly.

Finished it. He makes some good points, and although I think he makes an unjustified leap from "no evidence of existence" to "therefore non-existence", I agree with his overall conclusion that the universe looks exactly the way we would expect it to look if there was no god. It was nice to see such a concentration on the scientific evidence, rather than "religion is evil".

Now reading Owen Gingerich's The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus.

--------------Math is just a language of reality. Its a waste of time to know it. - Robert Byers

He makes some good points, and although I think he makes an unjustified leap from "no evidence of existence" to "therefore non-existence", I agree with his overall conclusion that the universe looks exactly the way we would expect it to look if there was no god.

While, philosophically speaking I agree with you, the question that always springs to my mind is "would we be so philosophically precise and indulgent if we were talking about unicorns, fairies at the bottom of the garden or celestial teapots?".

My guess is we'd say "yes", but the bulk of the time we'd act "no".

A person who claims that they ride a unicorn to work every day and is paid by pixies in special fairy money, which is worth double, and has a direct phone line to Batman doesn't get the same treatment as a person who claims that they have a direct mystical hotline to the creator of the universe and we can get one too if we just abandon the evidenciary approach on the matter.

He makes some good points, and although I think he makes an unjustified leap from "no evidence of existence" to "therefore non-existence", I agree with his overall conclusion that the universe looks exactly the way we would expect it to look if there was no god.

While, philosophically speaking I agree with you, the question that always springs to my mind is "would we be so philosophically precise and indulgent if we were talking about unicorns, fairies at the bottom of the garden or celestial teapots?".

My guess is we'd say "yes", but the bulk of the time we'd act "no".

A person who claims that they ride a unicorn to work every day and is paid by pixies in special fairy money, which is worth double, and has a direct phone line to Batman doesn't get the same treatment as a person who claims that they have a direct mystical hotline to the creator of the universe and we can get one too if we just abandon the evidenciary approach on the matter.

Louis

I more or less agree with you, Louis. I think the absence of evidence, given that it is total absence of evidence, is very, very strong evidence of absence, and it's why I am an atheist. I Just think that Stenger stretches the point a little.

If we uncovered evidence that the universe had been created by a god (and I have no idea what that evidence might be) I would be very, very surprised, but I'm not prepared to rule it out totally, in the way we can totally rule out a 6,000-year-old Earth, or fairies at the bottom of my garden. (The unicorns ate all the fairies).

And the fact is that most people do weigh the evidence on God in a different way to the evidence on unicorns. It's for cultural reasons, and it's not a good thing, but I think we have to just learn to live with it.

"If only God would show me a sign. Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank." - Woody Allen

--------------Math is just a language of reality. Its a waste of time to know it. - Robert Byers

Finished the selfish gene(30th Aniversary edition) on Thu and moved onto The Drones omnibus by P.G.Wodehouse. I checked the Wodehouse out while still reading chapter 11 of "selfish" and kinda wish I'd waited and read "extended phenotype" first. Still, I am enjoying "drones", some fantastic lines.

Revealing my utter mundanity, I just received my copy of "Deathly Hallows," the final Harry Potter book.

I'm also reading the fourth book, "Summer Night," in the light Chicago-set wizard-noir series about Harry Dresden, by Jim Butcher.

But, on the science side of the ledger, I'm also reading (BWE's suggestion of) "The botany of Desire." It's going slowly (for me), not because it's either dense or turgid, but because each sentence is a clear-sparkling gem, that requires contemplation.

I'm also reading a couple of summaries of (primarily) archaeological study about Southeastern/Mississipian precontact cultures, one more general, susan c. Power's "Early Art of the Southeastern Indians: Feathered Serpents & Winged Beings," and one more specific and site-focused, Timothy Pauketat's "Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians."

I'm still working through the text of J.J. Brody's "Mimbres Painted Pottery," which is both an archaeological/anthropological work and, in effect, an art history (I've repeatedly devoured the splendid graphics),whilst I'm also nibbling away at de Laguna's multi-volume tome on the northernmost Tlingit group, "Under Mount Saint Elias: The history and culture of the Yakutat Tlingit."

Oh, yeah, and trying to pick up a couple of tunes from the tabs'n'chords book, "Creedence Clearwater Revival: The Guitar Anthology Series."

But, on the science side of the ledger, I'm also reading (BWE's suggestion of) "The botany of Desire." It's going slowly (for me), not because it's either dense or turgid, but because each sentence is a clear-sparkling gem, that requires contemplation.

That's a fantastic book. Although it sounds implausible, the chapter on the potato may actually be the best. His summary of the history of potatoes in Ireland is especially interesting.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

I've read them all. Another roadside attraction is quite different though. It's a bit clunky at the beginning and the blowjobs are sort of gratuitous (can't wait for the jokes from that one) but the story moved me.

--------------Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far

Well, I sent in my review for Evolution and Religious Creation Myths: How Scientists Respond, by Paul F. Lurquin and Linda Stone. So I figured I should post something here as well.

This book is well-researched, and would be a valuable tool for "anyone who has ever needed to argue why evolution and creationism are not both valid theories that deserve equal attention", as the publisher points out. It is dense, with small type, so it packs a lot of ammo into a slim volume. It seems to be aimed at a broad audience, and therefore has sections that will be pretty superficial for some members of that audience. For example, if you know much about biology, you can skip the chapters about genetics and molecular biology. Ditto for the chapter on the Big Bang if you are reasonably well-acquainted with modern physics. It is nice to have all of these things in one volume, but it does detract from the "readability" score.

It also has a decent summary of the history of creationism and ID (which the authors call neo-creationism, a nice touch). They tackle irreducible complexity as well, and show that all of Behe's examples (immune system, flagellum, etc) are not really irreducibly complex. Unfortunately, since this book went to press before Behe's latest opus, it is already a bit dated with regard to disputing his latest sham arguments.

All in all, this is a very good resource book. It is not light reading, but I can recommend it to this crowd as a good book to lend to anyone who has serious questions about the creationism/neo-creationism v evolution "controversy". It will get them up to speed quite handily.

--------------Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mindHas been obligated from the beginningTo create an ordered universeAs the only possible proof of its own inheritance. - Pattiann Rogers

Since it's been thunderstorming here for the past two days, I've been housebound all weekend, and have been spending the time reading through a bunch of declassified documents I found on the web, about US military plans for waging nuclear warfare. Fascinating. among other things, the documents show that:

Eisenhower initiated a policy wherein, under certain circumstances, US military officials recieved thre authority to launch nuclear weapons on their own, without any prior communciation from the President (a policy that later scared the shit out of the US government during the Cuban Missile Crisis -- when Curtis Lemay, among others, argued for a full pre-emptive nuclear attack on the Soviet bloc).

The US also physically moved nuclear weapons into Korea for use, but declined to use them because (1) Truman was opposed to it on political grounds, and (2) North Korea had no large targets worthy of a nuclear strike.

The US also moved and deployed nuclear weapons in several dozen other nations, mostly without that nation's permission or knowledge -- many times in direct violation of treaty.

The military plan for nuclear warfare was known as the Single Integrated Operations Plan (SIOP). It was updated periodically as new weapons became available. In reading the SIOPs over the years, it becomes apparent that targeting plans were not based on any military need or necessity, but simply used every weapon that became available, by assigning it to SOMETHING.

Originally, SIOP had only two options for any military incident; either no nuclear action at all, or a fullscale all-out attack. The SIOP also drew no distinctions between unfriendly nations --- a regional attack by China on Taiwan, for example, would provoke a fullscale nuclear response not only against China, but against the USSR and all the Eastern European Soviet Bloc nations as well. The SIOP was, literally, all or nothing. Kennedy was the first President to order the plan modified for "flexible response", wherein intermediate grades of nuclear response were possible -- targeting specific countries, for example, or targeting just a portion of the enemy's nuclear weapons capability.

One of the documents presents an estimate of the casualties that would result from several different nuclear options -- including a strike solely against Soviet nuclear weapons sites, and an all-out attack on Soviet cities (the casualties, not surprisingly, were about the same in either case).

The US also gave serious consideration to the use of nuclear weapons during the 1961 Berlin crisis, and to a lesser extent, during the Vietnam War. Unlike in Korea, however, no nuclear weapons were actually moved into physical position for an attack.

During the late 70's and early 80's, members of the joint Chiefs of Staff argued that the nuclear war plans (which were largely developed by the Air Force) were unnecessary overkill, that the plan greatly overestimated Soviet nuclear strength, and that far more weapons were being produced and deployed than were militarily necessary. (Oddly enough, those are the very same points that the antiwar nuclear freeze movement, which I was involved with during the Reagan years, was making.)

Also declassified is a 1994 report on the role of nuclear weapons in the "new world order". It argues that the US should use nuclear weapons unilaterally, without international oversite or permission, against non-nuclear nations, in the "war on terror". (A few months ago, when active plans appeared to be in action for an invasion of Iran, it was leaked that part of that plan was the use of earth-penetrating nuclear weapons to destroy underground Iranian command bunkers and weapons centers.)

For those of us who lived through the Cold War years, it is somewhat surprising that, with Korea making nuclear efforts, both India and Pakistan (who have already fought three wars against each other) both in possession of nuclear weapons, the possession of nuclear weapons by Israel (which is why Iran and Iraq want them), and the current US policy of unilateral use against non-nuclear nations, the probability of the intentional military use of nuclear weapons is higher today than it has been at any time since the end of the Cold War in 1991.

Thanks for that Lenny. Relax and learn to love the bomb ....or something. I see no romances on the ATBC book list? ......can I recommend "Memories of My Melancholy Whores". by Gabriel Garcia Marquez?(Howie Ahmanson's nemisis). If that tickles your fancy try "Love in the time of Cholera" Fidel, me and the woman who claims to be my girlfriend all enjoyed it.

While you guys have been fighting the good fight I have been swanning around the mountains of Papua New Guinea reading Joseph Campbell's "Oriental Mythology" all 500 pages of it, dense reading from Egypt to Japan and around 5000 years of mythological history .....not for the faint-hearted.

I should have been reading "Primitive Mythology" his first volume on the subject which would have been a great conversation starter with the locals.

Marquez should have 2 Nobels in my humble opinion. One for writing and one for reving up GWD by visiting Fidel recently. ......<snigger>.

Suck that down Bill and Dave you gobsmacks.

--------------The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions.These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.Haldane

Thanks for that Lenny. Relax and learn to love the bomb ....or something.

Okay, Slim.

The part I found most frightening was that as early as 1967, the US had enough nuclear weapons available to launch a strike against every city in the Soviet Bloc with a population over 25,000. That's every city the size of Cleburne, Texas. Or DeWitt, New York. Or Hertford, England. At least one-third of the total population of Russia, China and the Eastern Europe nations, would have died. At least another third would have been maimed.

By the mid 70's (when MIRVs were introduced), the US had so many nuclear weapons in its arsenal that it literally ran out of targets for them all, and simply began planning to hit the same targets more than once. (Some large cities, such as Moscow and Beijing, were already being targeted by as many as six or eight nukes right from the very first plans).

One can only presume that the Soviets were in a similar position in regards to NATO.

The US also physically moved nuclear weapons into Korea for use, but declined to use them because (1) Truman was opposed to it on political grounds, and (2) North Korea had no large targets worthy of a nuclear strike.

A correction to this -- it was the nuclear-trained bombers and their crews that were moved to Korea. The actual nuclear weapons (nine of them) only got as far as Guam before further transport was suspended.

The documents don't say whether these weapons were actually assembled with a live nuclear core (known as "the pit").

A quick thumbnail explanation --- nearly all US nuclear weapons are "implosion" types, in which a nuclear core is suspended within a hollow sphere made of several conventional explosives (around two tons or so, at that time). When the conventional explosives are set off, the converging shock waves compress the nuclear "pit" and squeeze it to supercritical density, which sparks off a fission chain reaction and detonates the bomb. (Hydrogen bombs, in turn, use an implosion bomb as a trigger, channeling the X-rays from that explosion around a nearby secondary core of lithium-deuteride, which is imploded by the radiation and sets off a fusion reaction).

For safety reasons, nuclear weapons are stored without their nuclear cores (legally, the "pits" are the property of the US Atomic Energy Commission, and can only be released to the Defense Department when authorized by the President; in actuality, a large number of "pits" have been "preauthorized" and are stored at Defense Department facilities, separately from the bomb assemblies but available for immediate use).

It seems most probable that the implosion explosive assemblies and the "pits" probably travelled separately, and in all likelihood would not have been actually mated to each other until they had reached the bomber bases in Japan and Korea that were to deliver them.